A securing piece normally referred to as a tag pin is widely used to attach a price tag to a commodity, attach a label to various commodities or animals, or put together two or more commodities including footwear.
The securing piece comprises a flat head portion, a filament portion perpendicularly intersecting the middle of the head portion and extending in one direction, and transverse rod portions arranged at the ends of the filament portion in parallel with the head portion. The entire securing piece is integrally made of a synthetic resin. Moreover, when manufacturing the securing piece, 100 to 200 securing pieces are connected to each other on one connective rod through a connective portion which extends on the extension line of the filament portion from the transverse rod portions and can be cut and integrally formed as an assembly of 100 to 200 securing pieces.
The securing piece made of a synthetic resin is used instead of a yarn conventionally used to attach a price tag to a commodity such as clothing, which is widely used to attach a label to many commodities because it is superior in the fact that a price tag can be easily attached to a commodity by gripping the lever of a setting apparatus.
However, because a price tag attached to a commodity by using the normal securing piece is suspended by one filament portion and removal-prevented by the head portion, it freely moves and its direction is not determined. Therefore, this label cannot be used for a purpose of exactly fixing the label as if it is stuck to a commodity.
Moreover, as a modification of the securing piece for a price tag, the official gazette of Japanese Patent Publication No. 28619/1983 or Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 1043/1986 discloses a securing piece having a double-rod structure constituted by using a transverse rod portion instead of a head and setting the transverse rod portion to the both sides of a filament portion to form the whole into an H shape and the double-rod-type securing piece can be used when passing a transverse rod portion through two holes of a button, inserting the portion into the lower side of a dress, bending the filament portion into an inverted-U shape, and setting the button to the dress.
The double-rod-type securing piece disclosed in the above official gazette of Japanese Patent Publication No. 28169/1983 is constituted by long continuing transverse rod portions at the both sides of the securing piece and connecting filament portions like a ladder between the transverse rod portions at a predetermined interval. To attach the securing piece to an object by an attaching apparatus, it is necessary to cut the continuous transverse rod portions into each transverse rod portion. Therefore, the structure of the attaching apparatus becomes complex.
Therefore, the attaching apparatus is mainly applied to a fixed-type large apparatus such as a sewing machine. However, the attaching apparatus cannot be easily operated because it is too large. Moreover, the official gazette also discloses a manual apparatus. However, the apparatus is not suitable for an operation of driving a securing piece while supporting the back of a commodity because the apparatus is used by inserting a hollow needle from one side of a commodity.
Moreover, the apparatus disclosed in the official gazette of Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 1043/1986 also uses a ladder-like double-rod-type securing piece. However, the apparatus has an extremely bad operability as a portable type because the apparatus uses a large specific screw mechanism as a feed mechanism so as to guide a filament portion to the screw mechanism by bending the filament portion into a U shape and thereby, the apparatus is extremely complex and moreover, inevitably becomes large.
However, when securing a label made of cloth, paper, or leather to a jean, canvas product, or fabric by driving a double-rod-type securing piece into four corners of the label as if the tag were sewed, the tissue of the jean is very hard and dense compared to that of a normal fabric for clothing. When inserting two hollow needles having a diameter of 1.8 to 2.0 mm and arranged in parallel, the resistance is extremely large compared to the case of the normal fabric for clothing and therefore, it is absolutely impossible to perform continuous operations by a manual attaching apparatus.
Therefore, to attach a label made of cloth of leather to a Jean or canvas which is harder than the texture of normal clothing, a method of sewing the jean or canvas by a stapler for office work or an industrial sewing machine using a thick yarn is used. In the case of the method of using a stapler, it is necessary to sew a Jean while rolling up the end of the Jean by hand. Therefore, it is difficult to press the stapler, thereby, it is impossible to drive a stapler needle into an accurate position, and it is difficult to attach the label to a predetermined position.
Moreover, it is difficult to perform the above troublesome manual operation using a metallic stapler requiring a gripping force for a long time continuously. Furthermore, the stapler needle has problems that it cuts fibers and damages a commodity when it is driven into the commodity and it produces rust while it is stored for a long time to extremely deteriorate the quality of the commodity.
Furthermore, the method of sewing a jean by applying the jean to a large double-rod-type securing-piece attaching apparatus such as an industrial sewing machine has problems that the operability is deteriorated and the operation for attaching a label can be performed at only a predetermined place where the attaching apparatus is set.
In the case of the method of sewing a label on clothing or the like by using a thick yarn, an attaching position of the label can be optionally selected and an operation place is not restricted. However, this is a manual operation and moreover, it is impossible to attach the label to an inaccessible position at the back of cloth. Therefore, there is a problem that it is absolutely impossible to continuously and efficiently attach a lot of labels.
It is a first object of the present invention to provide a twin-type securing-piece attaching apparatus capable of solving, at a stroke, the problems with a button attaching apparatus using a conventional double-rod-type securing piece made of a synthetic resin, an apparatus for attaching a label by driving stapler needles, and a method of sewing a label on an object with a thick yarn.
Moreover, it is a second object of the present invention to provide a securing-piece attaching apparatus capable of attaching even a securing piece used to attach a normal price tag by using the attaching apparatus.